


Shadow Riders: Storm Winds

by Maygra



Series: Magnificent 7: Shadow Riders AU [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-31
Updated: 2003-10-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:16:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maygra/pseuds/Maygra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Notes:  In a way, this is a bit of a cheat. This AU, was culled and mulled and feverishly worked over in my head for some months. It would be entirely remiss of me to not acknowledge how much Joe Lawson's Two-Blood Universe and Diamondback's Camino del Diablo influenced both the feverish thought and the desire to dabble in the dark realms myself. </p><p>I've take great liberties with both Persian mythology and classic horror literature. This particular offering, set in the present (plus some), is more of a retrospective for me, to work out in narrative form, how the events in another story "Riders of the Storm" which is not yet completed, play out. I've got the basics of a concordance in the works, and the first story will hopefully, explain much. Similarities to Joe and  Diamondback's stories are unavoidable and not entirely unintentional, although I don't mean to tread on their creations. But I am most fervently inspired by them .</p><p>Warnings: This story has not been betaed, exactly. And on pain of death, I'm not allowed to say who has looked it over until it is . But it's halloween and I wanted  to offer a treat -- or a trick. The universe is open, although if you are interested, you may want to wait until the first story, if not the concordance, is up and running. (Or inquiries are welcome.)</p><p> </p><p>Feedback of any sort is encouraged and welcomed at maygra@bellsouth.net.</p><p> </p><p>Oh yeah, happy hallow's eve.<br/>10/31/2003</p>
    </blockquote>





	Shadow Riders: Storm Winds

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: In a way, this is a bit of a cheat. This AU, was culled and mulled and feverishly worked over in my head for some months. It would be entirely remiss of me to not acknowledge how much Joe Lawson's Two-Blood Universe and Diamondback's Camino del Diablo influenced both the feverish thought and the desire to dabble in the dark realms myself. 
> 
> I've take great liberties with both Persian mythology and classic horror literature. This particular offering, set in the present (plus some), is more of a retrospective for me, to work out in narrative form, how the events in another story "Riders of the Storm" which is not yet completed, play out. I've got the basics of a concordance in the works, and the first story will hopefully, explain much. Similarities to Joe and Diamondback's stories are unavoidable and not entirely unintentional, although I don't mean to tread on their creations. But I am most fervently inspired by them .
> 
> Warnings: This story has not been betaed, exactly. And on pain of death, I'm not allowed to say who has looked it over until it is . But it's halloween and I wanted to offer a treat -- or a trick. The universe is open, although if you are interested, you may want to wait until the first story, if not the concordance, is up and running. (Or inquiries are welcome.)
> 
>  
> 
> Feedback of any sort is encouraged and welcomed at maygra@bellsouth.net.
> 
>  
> 
> Oh yeah, happy hallow's eve.  
> 10/31/2003

Shadow Riders: Storm Winds by Maygra 

Universe: Shadow Riders (open) 

Pairings: Chris/Vin/Buck. All pairings open. 

Rating: NC17, slash 

Present day and then some: 

There's been a time when the night was more for darkness and fear, when a superstitious people came to think that the sun fell from the sky and left only a ghost of itself in the moon and sometimes not even that much. You lit fires to keep the monsters away, to protect yourself from the ghosts of the dead. Things moved in the dark and made noise, shifted and skittered and crawled and you couldn't see them. You might think it was rats or mice or night creatures, but you didn't see them. Could have been anything. 

Then somewhere along the way, man had got it in his head that he was king of all he surveyed. That the sun and the moon were no more than bits of rock and gas, spinning endlessly in the voluminous sky and not man's -- nor myth's -- to command at all, so the fear that one or the other would fail to show its face, faded. Night became only the absence of sun, and the noises and shadows in the night held less fear. Monsters didn't walk in the dark, nor the dead. It was only mice and insects and creatures who felt shadows more suited to survival than sunlight. 

Only the very young, the cowardly, or the guilty feared the night for itself any longer. 

But where men challenged the night, in large numbers, in cities and towns where the night lamps burned through until dawn on their little solar activated batteries; where the neon and fluorescent and vapor lights and headlights and marquees held the darkness back…it wasn't hard to feel the fear the night still brought, no matter the rationale for keeping it at bay just that much longer. 

Man still chased the dark back in pursuit of a twenty-four hour life-style. All night diners and quick marts, bars and clubs and even after most of those had shut down, the night was still held back and the only monsters that walked the streets at night in the darkened alleys and the run down sections were the man-kind monsters. Bad men, criminals, those who preyed on the weak or the stupid, who wanted what others had or, at the very least, didn't want anyone to have more than they themselves had. 

No one believed in monsters any longer. Not really. Or rather, those that did were few and tended to stay quiet about it, huddled in their churches, in their small apartments or rooms or on their big estates with the gates and security systems and their fear that what moved in the night sometimes, had nothing to do with the realm of man at all. 

The old gods walked the streets. No flocks of worshippers followed them any longer, though one or two might. Power would draw the powerless or those who lusted after it, and there were men enough who still craved that. 

Josiah Sanchez had a lot of years to contemplate the roles of gods and monsters as the old age rolled into the new, as the 20th century gave way to the 21st, the same way the moon yielded to the sun and vice versa. 

He'd always thought it meant something bigger than science could explain, that sometimes, sometimes, the moon didn’t yield entirely to the sun. That it would hang there, after dawn broke, so that both sun and moon could be seen in the sky. 

The sun never challenged the moon's reign in the same way. There was something in that, he supposed. Maybe just a pretty metaphor. 

He heard the door close behind him; a solid latch on the door of the motel they'd been occupying for the last few days, despite Ezra' grumbling that there was a perfectly good Hilton just a few blocks away: better part of town, finer restaurants, less the stench of standing water and rotting garbage. 

The garbage did stink and Josiah wasn't the only one who only breathed deeply out of necessity. He didn't need to turn to see who had emerged. Hearing pinned his new companion emerging from three doors behind him, scent told him the mix of soap and sweat and the vaguely sickly sweet aroma of those who walked too closely to death meant Vin was up; that neither Buck nor Chris were as yet. 

The scent of slowly rotting flowers that accompanied Vin's movements indicated he hadn't been bled yet. 

"Josiah." 

"Evenin', Vin," Josiah said, not turning, only glancing over when Vin came to stand at the second floor railing, long fingers wrapped around the filigreed iron work as he stared over to watch the sun settle behind a horizon that was marked by high rises and billboards rather than the flat plains of their youth. 

Younger days, maybe, despite all appearances. None of them were young any longer, and maybe Vin could lay more claim to something ancient and enduring than any of them for all that he'd been changed very little by the passage of time. The fading sun brought out hints of red and copper in the dark hair that still fell to Vin's shoulders, turned the blue eyes into something shadowed and vaguely inhuman. It gave odd color to his already tanned skin and turned the silver gauntlets at his wrists to molten blood. 

The buckskin jacket had long since rotted and fallen away, replaced by a black, long-sleeved t-shirt and black leather pants; Vin taking on the aspects of the night with less style and flair than Chris Larabee ever had, or still did. On Vin the black was meant to hide. On Chris it drew the eye. 

Vin didn't flinch at Josiah's starin; didn't respond to it either, only watched the sun as it set. 

Beneath the sleeves of his shirt, Josiah's eyes could pick out the glow, the shimmer of something bright and revealing. The intricate pattern that encircled Vin's arms less obvious than the silver cuffs, not nearly as eye catching as the amulet that hung around Vin's neck under his shirt. They glowed only faintly, and no casual observer would think them more than some metallic thread woven into the fabric of Vin's shirt. 

They were more than that, far more, and Josiah only studied them for a long moment before reaching across to catch Vin's wrist and push the long sleeve back to show them more clearly. Vin didn't resist, didn't flinch, only shifted his weight, eyes never leaving the sunset. 

The patterns flickered and faded, like a faltering neon sign, the tracery glowing briefly against the tan of Vin's arm, beneath the skin, invisible when they faded away with every few beats of Vin's heart. 

"They'll be up soon," Vin said, voice still raspy and low, roughened by both whisky and the cigarettes he occasionally smoked -- both of them used like the gum he chewed or the hard candies he sucked on to keep the taste of blood and death out of his mouth for a time. 

Josiah let his thumb trace over the symbols, checking for breaks or fading as he always did. These were new, less than a couple of years old, but eventually they'd break down, heal over like any wound Vin got. "You're okay," Josiah murmured back and pulled the sleeve back down. He released Vin's wrist to grip his shoulder lightly. Vin leaned into that and gave Josiah a smile that was both wry and amused, shaking his head when Josiah chuckled deep and low. 

There was more shimmering at Vin's back, but Josiah didn't need to look at all of them, only applied his other hand to massaging some of the tension from Vin's shoulders. 

The words and symbols were meant to reveal something, but they were mostly unseen. Josiah didn't need to actually see the marks to know they were there or know what they said. He'd put them there himself; he and Nathan, cutting into the firm flesh of Vin's arms and back and chest, along his legs. Filled those lines and wards and symbols with molten silver while Vin had screamed and thrashed and it had taken the rest of them to hold him down. 

It had taken them decades to find the right set of spells, the right phrasings. Time for Josiah to learn a language that few used any longer, to coax power from the mix of words and the power of silver into something that would both protect Vin and warn the rest of them when it was themselves that needed protecting from Vin. 

Josiah liked to think that his prayers had helped too, and maybe they had, if in no other way than to allow him to get through the deliberate and purposeful torture of a man he'd called friend for well over a hundred years now. 

But his God had little power over the old gods. Or maybe, in his omnipotent presence, he'd chosen to ignore those gods, those lesser immortals, the demons that had been unleashed on the world before the first words of the Holy Bible had ever been set to clay or papyrus, long before the new God, the Son of Man and God had risen from the dead. The old gods had been banished, dismissed to other realms on earth, to people that had yet to be called to glory. 

Josiah might have found much to object to in that if he hadn't known that the oldest of the new faiths still watched and waited and battled as necessary, those gods and monsters that were older still. The Holy Roman Mother church, the faithful in Israel, the Muslim priests…Hindu, Buddhist -- he could name them all; could count on his fingers and toes the numbers of those who knew the old gods had never really been banished, only forgotten. 

The sun settled and vanished, leaving only a blood-red tracery of its power and luminescence as a reminder that it would rise again. In another part of the sky, the crescent moon rose, glowed white even above the wash of light pollution and haze of smog. 

The symbols on Vin's skin flared and glowed as if sucking out the brightness of the moon, and his breath caught, his shoulders tensing again. 

Josiah held on, waiting while the demon that occupied Vin's body and had stolen some vital part of his soul tested its strength, challenged the spells binding it, and the silver weakening it. Beneath his hands, Josiah thought he felt it move, the warmth of Vin's skin rising a degree or two. Vin's hands were white knuckled on the railing, eyes fiercely clinging to that last vestige of sunlight. 

Not so much because he missed the sun -- he could move about in it as easily as Josiah could. No, he wanted the sun to go down, for the edge of darkness to approach so that he could get some relief from the demon inside him that tested its prison and Vin's strength at every opportunity. 

Only partly conscious of it, Josiah reached for the long knife at his side, fingering the hilt. 

Another door opened and closed and this time Josiah did look, squeezing Vin's shoulders as Chris Larabee emerged, pale and lean, untouched by the nascent chill in the air of early autumn. His eyes lingered on Vin for a moment, then on Josiah who only nodded and stepped back, clearing the way but not leaving them. A flicker of movement and Buck was there as well, leaning against the doorway, dark and earthy compared to Chris' ghost-like countenance. 

Chris showed even less hesitation than Josiah, pulling the hem of Vin's shirt up, fingers skating over the faintly pulsing symbols that glowed beneath the skin of Vin's back, every bright flare an indication of how badly Akmanna wanted to regain control of his chosen servant. 

Something that would never happen, Josiah knew. Over their dead bodies, only, and they'd all been close to it or crossed over a time or two. Sometimes at Vin's own hand. 

Josiah could offer a vestige of the same relief to Vin Chris and Buck could provide, but that was an option they played very little, reserved for daylight and desperation. 

The intimate dance of love and hate, need and desire that had sprung up between the three men was not a thing to be challenged lightly and despite the occasional need for it, no one really wanted to cause Vin more pain -- physical or emotional -- than was absolutely necessary. 

"We huntin'?" Buck asked quietly, giving a nod to Josiah. 

"Yeah." It was Vin that answered, lifting his head as if to scent the wind. "She's close enough…" Another shudder and Chris dropped Vin's shirt, pressing close to his back in an embrace that looked both affectionate and intimate. Maybe not entirely proper on the exposed balcony of a cheap hotel, in sight of the street, but propriety and the civilized manners of a bygone age had been more or less dropped along with much of the humanity of their little band. 

Once Josiah might have looked away -- they all would have -- but no longer and modesty was one of the first things to be discarded unless expediency dictated otherwise. Chris only moved Vin's hair aside, drew him back from the railing to lean against the motel wall and Buck moved to stand in front of them, shielding them somewhat, both protective and ready. 

Josiah couldn't see but a fragment of Chris' face, but it was enough to glimpse the distortion of muscles, the extension of his jaw and the flash of white incisors as they raked along Vin's throat and then sank deep. Beneath his shirt the sigils on Vin's skin shone like white fire and the growl that escaped him could have been either protest or approval. 

Chris was neither messy nor noisy as he pulled blood from Vin, his own pale skin already taking on the illusion of a more healthy mien. Only the firm embrace Chris had on Vin's upper chest and waist hid the arousal Josiah knew was there. He didn't need to smell the sharp tang of lust to know it, and Vin's reaction was far more obvious. 

Then Josiah did look away, unwilling to be caught up in the thrall of seduction and need that was the demon's -- and Vin's -- last line of defense against the weakness the loss of blood would prompt. Another low sound escaped Vin, more like a whimper and one hand clutched at Chris' arm, the other reaching near-blindly for the open placard of Buck's shirt. 

Buck whispered something and Chris lifted his head, the distortion still present but there was awareness in the eyes that seemed to glow like emeralds. The symbols on Vin's skin were dark and silent now, and Chris eased back, face reassembling itself into something more normal and far less feral or hard than was expressed when he fed. 

"Come on, darlin'," Buck said it quietly, his far more human face both tender and terrible to look at. He put an arm around Vin's shoulder, pulling him away from Chris' embrace to guide him back into the room they were sharing for the long days. Vin looked dazed and pale, docile in a way that still seemed unnatural and wrong even after a century of seeing it. 

Chris wiped at his mouth, staring at the concrete under his feet until the door closed once more, before pushing off the wall to stand where Vin had, looking out over the brightly-lit nighttime version of the city. 

Changing of the guard, Josiah noted, moving to stand beside Chris. They'd all hunt tonight, Nathan and JD already out picking up food for those that needed it. Ezra was up too, thumbing though newspapers and scanning headlines on the internet for reports of odd crimes, odd occurrences. Not so much for the hunt tonight but for the nights to follow, maybe more obsessed than any of them to somehow find an end to all of this even though Josiah suspected he knew it wouldn't be so easy as to just end. 

"He had a good day," Josiah said, knowing Chris wanted to know, though he rarely asked. "Went to the museum of natural history." 

Chris nodded and pulled out the small cigars he still favored, offering one to Josiah. The smoke was sweet and hot, Josiah enjoying the taste of it. 

"As soon as the others get back, we'll head out," Chris said and Josiah nodded, remaining to finish his smoke as Chris clamped his teeth down on his own and returned to his room. Josiah let the traffic noises drown out the brief wash of sound from the open door, envying and not envying all that Chris and Buck did or offered to Vin as no one living ever would or could again. 

The slam of a van door brought his attention down and he grinned and waved at Nathan, then chuckled again at the German Shepard that accompanied him. JD led the way, four feet bounding up the stairs and tail wagging. JD did like a good hunt and he was ready to go, obviously -- either that or just hadn't wanted to have to help Nathan carry up the bags of take out. 

Josiah stepped back and rapped knuckles on the door. "Ezra, food's here," he called out and a moment later Ezra opened the door and took a sniff as Nathan came closer. 

"Sustenance, Mr. Sanchez. Hardly *food*," he said, glancing down as JD slipped by him. "Stay off the bed," he warned and JD gave a bark in reply but obediently stretched out on the carpet. Ezra glanced at the door next to his own then away as Nathan slid past him to set the food out. "Are we going to have time to eat?" he asked. 

Josiah flicked the small cigar over the railing, watching the sparks scatter on the asphalt below. "Time enough." 

Ezra's eyes narrowed, but he turned away, Josiah catching only a glimpse of both the sorrow and anger that had never quite shifted into acceptance for Ezra as it had for the rest of them. 

Well, Ezra and Vin, maybe. 

Nathan was unwrapping a beef and cheese burrito, spreading it and the paper out on the floor for JD. Josiah supposed at least one other of them would have to change as well, most likely himself, since Ezra never would unless he was forced to and Nathan didn't much care for having to steal a shape from somebody's pet even though the animal would come to no real harm. Ethical objections in Nathan were as varied and conflicted as his opinions on the state of the world. Nathan liked things fair, he liked choices and those were in short supply for all of them. But the even less likely choice was for Nathan to slip into the wolf form the four of them could take without any extra effort. Wolves roaming city streets, leashed or unleashed, would draw far more attention than any of them wanted or needed. 

It was Buck that came knocking a half hour later, fully dressed and grinning when JD launched himself at him. "Now who's the big dog?" Buck said on a laugh, scratching behind JD's ears. "We’re walking, maybe checking out if we get lucky," he informed the others. 

Ezra took a look around where his computer and the stacks of newspapers were spread over the beds and glared at Buck. "More warning would be precipitous, Mr. Wilmington." 

"Don't sweat it, Ez. We're still hunting first. Lock the computer in the van and let's get moving." Buck ushered JD out the door, leaving it open. 

Nathan and Josiah took care of the detritus of their meal while Ezra gathered up what he needed and left the rest. The computer was securely over his shoulder as they left the room. 

A glance over showed Buck and JD still horsing around in the parking lot. A practical necessity as much as fun, because JD, even after a century of darting in and out of his were-shape, was still the excitable, eager and sometimes foolishly reckless young man the others had all taken under their wing in a small, dusty frontier town, and none more so than Buck. Chris and Vin were leaning against the front of the van, talking quietly, close together, but Vin looked up as Nathan and Ezra headed down the stairs. 

Josiah hung back on the edges as the little group got together, Ezra locking up his equipment and trading it out as Nathan did for weapons and holsters and loose jackets. Armed and ready and actually showing signs far more light hearted than even a half hour ago, they moved out as a group, taking the alley that ran next to the hotel. 

Vin and Chris took point and JD strained and danced around them, until Vin's hand dropped to rest on his ruff, that simple act calming JD somewhat. 

Buck hung back to walk with Josiah, none of them hurrying, all of them looking like a bunch of guys out for a night on the seedier part of town, accompanied by a playful-looking dog. 

They passed by the chained in lot of an auto parts dealer and Buck and Josiah paused as an aggressive-looking Rottweiler charged the fence. 

"Got a leash?" Josiah asked, eyeing the dog and then Buck. 

"Always…" Buck chuckled, producing the requisite choke collar and short leash from his jacket pocket and gave a low whistle. 

The others stopped and turned. Ezra only rolled his eyes but moved back, all of them in a loose semi-circle as Josiah approached the fence. 

"Now, now, fella…no threat here," Josiah murmured and the dog gave a whine and a bark, a puzzled look on its black face, but it approached, aggression fading for curiosity and then bliss as Josiah pushed fingers through the mesh to chuck the animal under its chin. 

Awkward with the fence but Josiah managed it, coaxing the dog closer and sideways before taking a nick out of the animal's ear with his knife and pulling the ear through the fencing to suck on the blood flowing there, his companions providing a shield. 

Josiah had never understood the mechanism and Nathan couldn't explain it through science or medicine, although he'd finally managed to get that "M.D." lodged in behind his name. He thought there was a reason, if he had the skills or the equipment to decipher it as well as a few dozen geneticists and biologist to do the work. Josiah no longer argued with him about it, understanding Nathan's need to at least hope for the rational. 

Even when he was assisting Josiah in summoning what could not be denied as supernatural 

It was still a pity that Nathan had never had much chance to use his skills on humans, though. 

Stripping off his clothes took only a moment; Vin gathering them up and folding them carefully to put them in the backpack he carried. 

Josiah only crouched down in front of Buck, closed his eyes and tasted the dog's blood again -- sharp and bright on his tongue -- and pictured the big animal in his mind. 

The choke collar only barely fit and Buck attached the leash but left it loose. It was more for show, as JD's collar and leash were. 

Vin crouched as well, running his hands along Josiah's fur while Nathan made sure the penned Rottweiler's ear had stopped bleeding. Rising to his feet, Vin lifted his head and closed his eyes, then lifted his chin and indicated westward. "That way…" he said and the silver tattoos on his arms glowed faintly, like calling to like. 

"Let's go then," Chris said and started walking, one arm securely around Vin's shoulder as the hunting party took up the scent. 

Ezra's keen eyes scanned the club floor, the drink in his hand only made better by the ice melting in it. He promised himself a shot of far better scotch once they'd managed to send their latest prey into the hereafter. Of necessity, Nathan had remained outside with JD and Josiah and the pack of clothing and supplies. Ezra could almost laugh at the wary glances and nervous movements of people on the street passing the big man lounging on the hood of somebody's Camaro with two large dogs keeping a watchful eye on the crowd. 

Below him on the main floor of the club, he could see Buck and Vin, moving in among the crowd and on the far side, Chris waited, a slim shadow against the black curtain that hid the only other exit to the place. They didn't actually want a confrontation here, if they could avoid it, but the confrontation would come, nevertheless. 

Despite his unwillingness to give in to the lupine aspect of himself, it was rare that Ezra didn't find some kind of use, if not satisfaction, in the enhanced senses his condition made available to him. Sight was all very well, and even in the darkness and shifting light of the club, he could see easily enough. 

He could hear and smell with even more acuity. There was Buck, his scent one of ashes and dirt, not unpleasant if one had no objection to the scent of a freshly turned field, or the lingering aroma of a fire long dead. Chris was similar, but sharper somehow, with the cloying sweetness that was all too identifiable from Vin and it made sense since it was Vin's blood currently fueling, if not feeding, the slow, barely detectable thump of Chris Larabee's vestigial heart. 

And Vin himself, whose scent was occasionally so strong as to make Ezra wonder why the people around him didn't notice. If they did it was more likely they thought it a poor choice in personal cologne. To Ezra it was more the scent of bruised and rotting jasmine or honeysuckle, scents that could be considered pleasant under other circumstances, but here and now, like so many tiny signs and indicators they'd all learned to recognize over the years, it was a herald of the less pleasant or congenial aspect of Vin Tanner's personality. 

Had Chris blooded Vin fully, the scent would be gone, leaving only the more easily recognizable -- and dismissible -- scent of a human male to mark his passing. 

Double edged sword, it was, as was everything about their rather bizarre circumstances. Bleeding Vin out enough that the demon that shared his body was too incapacitated to make its presence known left Vin vulnerable and weak as well, but human. Too little and all of them had to be wary lest their former (and current) tracker be overtaken by the all too powerful vestige of the daevas they hunted even now. 

Bleed Vin too much and he couldn't hunt. Couldn't be the human compass cum homing device necessary to track down and kill those afflicted as he was. Or, should they be so lucky -- or so damned -- to actually encounter Akmanna's own host rather than one of his servants. 

The ultimate goal, Ezra supposed. It was to some extent. To recapture and contain the demon whose escape a century before had left them all as they were, a motley assortment of demon possessed, vampires, and shape-shifters who had been thrust into this endless cycle of hunting and killing and hunting again by the worst run of luck Ezra had ever seen. Together still, for the most part, as they'd been then. Seven men who had more or less fallen together to protect a little town from drunken cowboys, cattle rustlers, bank robbers and the occasional cattle baron, now clung together with possibly more purpose but far less confidence in their abilities. 

The little town was no longer. Not even a ghost town, just a barely discernible crossroad between two larger cities that were speeding ever faster toward the future so that the past seemed to be more hobby than a lesson never to be forgotten. 

From protecting the town to protecting the world. Ezra often wondered why they bothered, but it took only a glance through his carefully kept scrapbooks to know why, to remember that despite the lack of larger awareness in the world, there was more evil loose than the greed and desire of the common man. 

A second sweet scent washed over him, closer by and much stronger, that much different from Vin for Ezra to be able to separate the two. 

She really was quite lovely: black hair and long legs and a coterie of willing faithful gathered around her, men and women both, drawn by a smile that promised both the fulfillment of every carnal desire as well as the illusion that life would get no better. 

The music shifted and changed and she accepted the hand and offer of one of the young men, the others fighting to maintain their cool in the face of disappointment and envy as the pair moved onto the dance floor. 

They'd never believe they'd actually found salvation at being denied access to their new goddess. 

She hadn't been taken so long ago that she was even aware of her own power entirely. No longer than the last full moon, when Vin had felt her creation, reliving to a lesser degree his own possession. They'd been on the road within an hour of Chris' call. 

More opportunity than design, Ezra thought, wondering who she was, or who she had been. He gave no thought at all to who she might have become. It was all moot at this point. 

He set his glass down when Buck looked up and met his eyes, inclining his head toward the girl and her dancing partner. 

Chris was moving as well, Vin hovering on the edge of the dance floor and beginning to draw his own set of glances and suddenly lustful looks from total strangers. Ezra drew back and adjusted his earpiece, cupping his hand around the small microphone that looked no different from any other hands-free device. "Nathan, if you'd be so kind as to allow JD and Josiah to watch the back, I believe we are about to start herding," he murmured and got an acknowledgment as he descended the stairs. 

It wasn't so much a need for courage as it was gathering his resolve. He'd not be unaffected by the girl, any more than he would be unaffected by Vin should the tracker ever focus his charm on Ezra -- and he had. But the other side of Ezra's nature would afford some protection as the mortal she now held in thrall had none. 

And she was moving him, dancing with him to a far more shadowy alcove at the edge of the floor. Dangerous for her to choose such a public place, but canny as well. There were a lot of people, a lot of noise and people were drinking far more than was good for them. Who'd notice another drunken reveler slumped in a corner? No one. Not until the club closed and the cleaning crew discovered a dead body and the police had yet another bizarre murder to grace the local headlines. 

Ezra shouldered his way through the crowd, coming upon the pair, Buck not far behind but keeping some distance. She'd recognize the undead before she'd recognize Ezra as more than another ardent suitor. 

"May I cut in?" Ezra said, doing so without permission from either and taking the girl in his arms to whirl her even further into the darkness of the back hallway. Buck stopped her former prey from interfering and Ezra gave her his most charming smile. "I would think a more mature vintage would be to your liking, my dear," he said, smiling as her nostrils flared and her well shaped mouth opened to protest. 

Seconds only for Ezra to push and Chris to step in, moving faster than the demon could, to strike and weaken her before dragging her to the exit. Ezra turned, Buck slipping past him and Vin not far behind but lingering, his smile wide as he collected his own little group of followers. 

Ezra moved then -- there was little he could do with the girl or for Buck and Chris, but Vin was now his to contain. Easier now than a hundred years before, but no less a challenge. 

Vin's skin fairly glowed, taking in both the admiration and the thrum of life around him without Chris or Buck to rein him in. Ezra didn't even have to touch him to feel the heat, and the people around him responded to it like moths to flame. Ezra could feel the tug at his own insides when he did touch, locking his fingers in with Vin's, speaking before recognition hit and the anger and denial could build. "Haud ignota loquor, ne cede desiderare,"* he murmured, felt the shudder that ran through Vin's body, the sudden shift of near black irises to the more familiar blue, recognition flaring. To Ezra's sensitive eyes, the patterns etched in flesh on his chest flared as well. 

Vin's fingers tightened on his but he allowed himself to be led. The people around him looked vaguely confused and disappointed but already they were forgetting. In a few minutes they wouldn't even recall Vin's face, only the rush of desire. Hopefully they'd find less lethal means of satisfying it. The same would be true of the girl, eventually. Her presence and face forgotten like some strange dream or lingering sense of déjà vu. The fact that no angry horde followed them already bespoke of power contained. 

They were at the door but not out of it when Vin faltered and stumbled, going to his knees, and Ezra stopped to assist him, wary but apparently not enough when he found himself slammed to the wall and Vin's contorted face and snapping incisors inches from his throat. Beyond the door a banshee wail rose, like the sound of an emergency vehicle's siren, only far more nuanced and piercing, rising and falling to a persistent shriek. 

Ezra lost track of it then, far too busy keeping the she-demon's more familiar counterpart from ripping his throat out. Vin was fast and strong, to a point, but no more so than any human being hopped up on speed or pcp. 

Similarly, Ezra might wish himself to be drugged, so that the changes in Vin's face and body might be all illusion. Gone was the handsome face and easy smile to be replaced by a snarling, snapping visage that more rightly belonged to a pissed off JD in dog-form. Hands that could be capable and steady with a gun or a blade or even a bit of needle work, suddenly seemed skeletal and vicious, nails sharp and clawing. 

None of them were *that* unprepared or stupid and Ezra had been ready for something like this when Vin dropped, his hand dipping into his holster even as he'd reached for his companion. The shot might have been loud, but it was lost in the noise of the club, baffled by the drapes that hid the exit. Vin jerked and hissed, claws ripping at Ezra's shirt and Ezra fired again, even as the door popped open and a less than happy Chris Larabee appeared, face bloodied and clothing torn but moving as if none of it mattered -- which of course, it didn't, really. 

Vin was already dropping again, what blood there was invisible under the black shirt, but his face was normal and his eyes, when they briefly met Ezra's were blue and human once more, even glazed by both shock and pain. 

"Go..." Chris hissed at him, and Ezra went, holding the door open for Chris to carry Vin through it, then checking the hallway to make sure they weren't followed. Vin's blood on the floor lingered but even as Ezra watched it seemed to boil and shrink, drying out and turning into a blackish sludge that would be, in a few moments, only a smear of sticky blackness on the floor. 

He felt a burning along his own skin and looked down to see blood on his shirt, the tears from Vin's attack only partially deflected by the cloth. Nathan saw them too and had his kit out of the back pack, entirely ignoring the fact that the girl's limp body had been dragged to the side of the back alley. Or that a nearly naked Josiah was busily securing her arms and ankles with shackles that glinted dully in the darkness. Her skin was painted by more black blood that oozed from wounds at her throat and belly. Nathan just as easily ignored that Chris had Vin propped up against the wall with Buck pulling at Vin's shirt to do a hasty patch job on the two black holes that now pierced Vin's skin. 

"It will keep until we get back, Mr. Jackson," Ezra said, ignoring the burn, ignoring the fact that wound, minor as it was, could turn septic unless Nathan either treated it, or Ezra himself changed into the far more infection-resistant wolf form he abhorred. 

"JD went to get the van," Nathan said. Ezra hadn't even noticed their youngest was gone, but once the capture was made…chances were high he'd taken the keys and run back in dog form, changing once he arrived since they hadn't brought clothes for him -- or perhaps Nathan had. He excelled at the tiny details that kept them together more firmly than their combined quest -- or their sense of mutual obligation. 

Nathan ignored Ezra's protest and pulled his shirt back, cleaning out the scratches with betadine and peroxide, then applying antibiotic cream and a gauze patch. Ezra didn't argue with him further, eyes still on Vin, half angry at Chris and Buck for leaving Vin behind, and Ezra so vulnerable. 

But it wasn't neglect or forgetfulness, nor was it a callous disregard for what it would take to subdue Vin once his own control was weakened. The charms and spells and incantations etched into his skin did more than mere restraint could and their now subdued she-demon had none of those. Given that neither Chris nor Buck had come out of the encounter unscathed, it had probably been a close thing. 

They trusted that Ezra could handle Vin and he had. Odd, he thought, leaning against the brick, that once he might have resented the lack of trust shown him by his compatriots, and envied Vin the trust that seemed to flow so easily from other people to him, so much that even the great Larabee distance had been breached. 

Now, there wasn't one of them that could fully trust Vin at all. In daylight or in shadow, what remained of the Vin that hunted with them and fought with them, was really just a remnant, held there by spells, by the immutable binding of silver and in his saner moments, no doubt his affection for the six men that both protected him and used him. 

Ezra wasn't sure he could have stood it. Once upon a time, Vin had craved periodic sojourns into the wilderness of the wild west, seeking his balance, his inner self. Now leaving him on his own for even moments could spell disaster if not destruction. He was shackled to them by more than cuffs of silver or the surrendering of his blood willingly to Chris or Buck to keep the demon inside him contained. 

And they were shackled to him, albeit with far less restraining bonds. There had been separations of months and even years while Josiah studied and Nathan pursued his medical degree. Ezra had left them once for six months early on in this strange quest, disgusted and in denial about what a mad old gypsy woman had done to them and why. How it both expanded their life spans and left them, in so many ways, unfit for normal human companionship. Dangerous to the women they might have bedded, dangerous to each other. 

He might have left them entirely and forever had not an earthquake literally brought his carefully constructed illusions crashing down around his ears. 

It was the closest they'd come to actually capturing Akmanna and returning him to his own prison of silver and spells and they had failed partly because they really hadn't truly understood what they were facing and because, Ezra believed, the gypsy Magda, had been serious when she'd told them their number was as important as the changes she and her offspring had wrought upon them. 

Even understanding the instability of the fault that scored California's underbelly hadn't been blame enough to erase the fact that Akmanna had once been one of the old gods, a demon from another realm and age, where the power of the earth and all her heavens could be commanded by those who had the knowledge. They hadn't realized until then that while aspects of the demon showed themselves in Vin, he truly was but a servant and the master whose darkness called to Vin was far more powerful and infinitely more ruthless than Vin could be even at his worst. 

Thousands had died, the cities had burned for days, and all of it arranged by a demon who wanted nothing more, or less, than to secure his freedom to walk the world as he would. 

It had been JD who found Ezra, wandering amid the rubble, carrying what possessions had survived, stunned and shocked at the size and breadth of the catastrophe. He'd been as shocked to see JD as JD had been to see him. Then he'd spent four days with Josiah and Nathan digging the others out of the collapsed building they'd been residing in. 

None of the others had ever accused him of being the cause of either the earthquake or their failure to contain the demon. Ezra had taken that on years later, as they'd learned more about the foe they faced, how much thinner the veil between the balance of order and chaos in the world had become. 

Josiah had been their primary guide, but the knowledge was scarce and often expensive to come by, even in the more mundane commerce of gold and the shackles that kept Vin more their ally than their enemy had not been cheap either. 

Ezra had managed to continue denying the myths they'd seen come to life and the monsters they'd become for awhile, concentrating his not inconsiderable skill on acquiring the wealth they needed to continue to fund their hunt. He'd become adept at conning people not out of their wealth but out of information, sought and gained entrance into the most well-guarded of institutions in the pursuit of additional information to aid in their hunt either for the demon itself or for a way that would free them all, and perhaps Vin most especially. 

Or perhaps not. It was unthinkable now to leave Vin to his fate, but that hadn't always been the case. Only their own consciences and their affection for the man he had been really kept the seven of them together. Vin was all too aware of it as well. Aware too that his death, should it come, when it came, would be neither clean nor easy, nor was there any guarantee that death would be the release that most men counted on for good or bad. 

But it would free the rest of them, perhaps, if they could turn their backs on the evil that roamed the world in the form of a man of considerable charm and skill at deception. If they could ignore the fact that Akmanna, or the human he appeared to be at any given time, were not on a quest of his own. 

The Persian God of Chaos had given birth to more than one daevas in his eternal challenge to the gods of Light. Seven in all. Seven demons the gypsies, the Rom, had been guarding for centuries. Only one was free that they knew of. Only one had managed to release itself into the world, creating its own set of servants and spreading its influence, spreading chaos, preparing the way, perhaps, for the return of something worse than it was. 

Ezra heard the van and pulled himself from the fruitless pursuit of memory and regret. Vin was on his feet, as no normal man would or could be after having had two silver filled bullets pumped into his body. In a day or so he'd be ready to travel again, perhaps sooner since their work here was nearly done. 

JD emerged wearing only jeans and shoes, popping the back of the van open so that Josiah and Nathan could lift the subdued daevas servant into the back. There was no way to free her of the demon that they'd been able to find. All they could do was deprive the daevas of its host and that required far more privacy and isolation when possible, than the back alley of a popular night club. The only sure way they had was to take her head off and burn her remains, and be very, very sure there were no normal humans close by or the daevas would only trade one host for another. 

That had been Vin's fate and Ezra thought he might have seen envy in his eyes as the girl was lifted and Josiah and Nathan followed. No guarantee her soul would be free either, once it was done. The gypsies said not. What texts they'd found offered no promise of freedom for the demon-ridden even at death. 

They'd left a lot of ghosts wandering the world in the past century. 

It might have been more fair to offer the girl a chance to join them, and once, they might have contemplated it. Josiah had argued for it. Vin had argued against despite knowing there would never be a clean and easy death for himself. They couldn't trust Vin's own strength and spirit to contain the fragment of Akmanna that dwelled within him. They had even less reason to trust a total stranger. Demons weren't known for playing fair. 

Buck climbed in the back as well, leaving the second set of seats for Vin and Chris and Ezra caught the door. Caught Vin's flailing hand as he tried unsteadily to step up and in. Vin hesitated, fingers brushing lightly over the tears in Ezra's shirt. "Sorry, Ez." 

"No need, Mr. Tanner. I've long since given up wearing my good shirts on our little hunting excursions," he said with false brightness and a smile that wasn't quite so false. Vin's concern was as real as his regret. Ezra pressed his own hand lightly to Vin's chest. "My apologies as well, Vin." 

Vin nodded, easily forgiving, or maybe just understanding. He accepted Chris' assistance into the van and then leaned in as Larabee followed. Ezra shut the door and rode shotgun, as eager as any of them to be free of this place and done with this particular job. 

He'd have liked to be able to pass on the aftermath as well, but not since 1906 had he been willing to allow there to be anything less than the seven of them to be together when dealing with the dispensation of a demon. Perhaps the number was not as magical as Magda had told them, but there was undeniably strength in numbers. 

It took them an hour to find a spot isolated enough, the wash of the city's night lights behind them and nothing but clear sky and stars overhead. The van was not fitted for cross country but JD coaxed it off the road and into a field, the location obscured by an embankment and no sign of anything or anyone. 

There was little ceremony to what amounted to an execution. The long, sharp machete Nathan kept in the back of the van was pulled out, the blade honed. A canister of gasoline and a fire extinguisher were set to the side. 

Josiah knelt cautiously beside the girl, opening a small jar of silver filings mixed with beeswax and painted the symbols that would hopefully add some sort of containment, if not protection, to the shackles already binding her. A few murmured words offering both a blessing and requesting forgiveness were whispered and the girl came to consciousness with a growl and a snap at Josiah's hand. Her otherwise pretty face was distorted beyond recognition, the rows of sharp teeth more suited to a shark or a piranha than a woman. She cursed them and struggled, fought both chains and spells, and then began begging and pleading for her life. Josiah only shook his head and turned away. 

JD was already stripping down, as did Josiah and Nathan, and within a few heartbeats, three wolves prowled the edge of the undefined circle. 

Ezra murmured his own silent words, more curses than supplications, before stripping down as well and crouching. 

Vin looked hardly steady enough to do what was required but Chris let him go. He crouched as well, laying a still bloodied hand on the girl's face. 

"You can't do this...it's murder…" her whispered protest was a last effort, persuasion the only power left to her and then she hissed in recognition at the sigils on Vin's arm and chest flared briefly, obvious to her no-longer-human eyes. "You defy your master…deny what you are, what he's given you! Traitor!" she spat and Vin let the spittle remain on his cheek. 

"He ain't given me nothing but misery, little girl," Vin said. "You neither only you ain't seeing it." 

"He's given you everlasting life!" 

"Everlasting torment, you mean," Ezra said, and came closer. Even now her charm was there, her tone changing to something soft and subtle that plucked along his nerves and warmed his belly. 

"If you think that's all he offers, you've not been paying attention. Free me and let me show you." 

Ezra smiled. "You've underestimated maturity yet again, my dear," he said and sank back, seeing his own form shift in the blink of an eye and then let it take him. 

The girl glanced wildly around her, finally recognizing that there was no escape. She had no power over beasts, nor over the dead. 

The banshee wail rose again and Vin swung, cutting the cry off at mid pitch and nearly falling over from the effort of it. The girl's head rolled free and blood tinged black spilled from her throat, spattering Vin's already bloodied skin, and then slowed quickly, like a river dammed. 

Or perhaps like a soul damned. 

The blood shifted, coalesced and gelled, black separating from red. What had no form of its own sought a form, hunting for a host, stretching out wide like a hydra to seek out new lodgings. It found none in the four furred beasts that watched it and growled at it. There would be no home to be found in one already tainted by its own source, and Chris only grinned ferally as the black tendril ghosted over his body only to find it already bereft of mortal life. 

Buck picked up the canister, spreading the contents over the girl's body. Chris tossed him a lighter and Buck lit it, stepping back and drawing Vin with him, out of the flare range, before tossing the lighter into the mix of gasoline and kerosene and lamp oil. 

Even without a mouth the creature screamed, seeking to free itself from the flames, still hunting a new host. The sigils on Vin's body flared again, all but burning though his clothing, leaving ghostly traceries in the air and Chris and Buck drew him back further as much to keep him from flinging himself into the flames as to prevent any desperate attempt by the daevas to seek refuge in one already possessed. 

Another screech and the black formlessness collapsed in itself, sought shelter beneath the burning body then the flames rushed upward, accompanied by the scent of burning flesh and the vague scent of rotten flowers. A wind whipped the ash and smoke into the night sky although not a breeze ruffled the grasses beyond their little circle. 

A few more moments and the flames died, the body entirely consumed, leaving only a crust of ash and charred matter which also crumbled as the partially melted shackles became too heavy for the ash to bear. 

Ezra waited for no sign before changing back and seeking his clothing, watching as Buck kicked dirt over the ashes, scattering them. Nathan changed next and did the same, pulling on pants and then grabbing a shovel from the back of the van to start overturning the soil. 

JD remained as he was, creeping up to Vin to offer in lupine form what he would otherwise be too self-conscious or shy to do in his human form. Simple comfort, comfort Vin accepted gratefully, wrapping his arms around the shaggy neck to rub his face against the near black fur. 

Chris crouched behind them both, gave JD a cursory pat and then a nudge. "Get dressed, JD. We're moving out." 

"To better accommodations, I hope, Mr. Larabee?" Ezra asked, not entirely self-serving. 

"Still got your eye on the Hilton, Ezra?" Buck asked him, coming up with JD's jeans and shoes and an extra shirt. 

"Something better than the flea motel at the very least." 

"Easier to clean up there," JD said, pulling on his jeans. "Nobody will pay attention." 

"That work for you, Ezra?" Chris asked, sarcasm evident but both JD and Buck were grinning. 

"Immeasurably well, Mr. Larabee." 

"Let's move then," Chris said and stood up. "Come on, Vin," he added, offering the other man a hand up, his tone far gentler. It took more than his hand to get Vin on his feet, and Ezra offered his own shoulder for Vin to lean against, paying little attention to the blood that stained his clothes. 

"Moving west again," Vin murmured, voice barely a whisper. 

"And we will pursue, but not tonight," Ezra said and urged Vin forward. Chris let him take charge, wresting the keys from JD and chasing him into the back of the van with half-hearted threats that had JD laughing. 

It seemed an odd thing to hear when they'd just meted out death without writ of law or real authority. 

Vin smiled, though, and Ezra did as well. 

Any reminder that they were still human on some level would never be denied, be it tears or laughter. 

And the latter was too rare to waste any opportunity for appreciation. 

Chris got the engine turned over and headed them back toward the road. Ezra took up a small corner of the bench seat and let Vin stretch out. There were no drugs in Nathan's pharmacopeias that could ease his pain, nor heal the wounds until they had time to dig the bullets out, but already the skin would be healing over the wounds, leaving the metal inside to further torment the demon that haunted Vin's blood. 

That alone was comfort enough for Vin it seemed, who made no noise at all, only protected his aching belly and chest with folded arms and shallow breathing, his head pillowed against Ezra's thigh. There was blood in his hair, and the spittle the girl had launched at Vin had dried to a dark smear on his cheek. 

Ezra reached within his pocket to find a less than pristine handkerchief, but it would suffice with a little bottled water and he wiped at the smear, then at the spatters of blood on Vin's face. 

"Better than a momma, Ez," Buck said, leaning over the back of the seat and reaching over to pull the matted hair from Vin's face. "We'll get you taken care of soon, pard," Buck promised and Vin nodded, closing his eyes, taking what rest he could amid men who would let him harm no one. Not even themselves. 

It was all unfair, Ezra thought, adding his hand to Buck's along Vin's shoulder, to keep the rocking of the van over the rough terrain from tossing Vin around too much. 

Unfair on any level, but if not them then someone else, perhaps, or even Magda's descendents who they had contact with intermittently. There was a debt owed there as well, as yet unpaid by the gypsies that had so poorly executed their task. 

But that was unfair as well. The Hanish clan had paid dearly for their failure, so much so that their blood was thin in the world and power of it resided primarily within the bodies and minds of four men who were unlikely to propagate the race of shape-shifters although there had been a time when they might have done so unknowingly. 

Too little time and the circumstances too desperate for Magda to have been able to explain it all, and even if she had, time and research had proven her information to be somewhat lacking, details and specifics lost over generations and traditions, elders lost to the ravages of a long ocean journey to unknown shores. She'd been left with only the children of her clan, and only two capable of producing more children to carry on the task or pick it up when circumstance had forced the clan to set the task aside for a time, to pass it on to opportunity and seven men who known nothing and been unwilling to believe. 

Rumors were she still haunted the nights as Chris and Buck did, making amends perhaps, but they had yet to encounter her or catch more than a rumor here or there. The other Rom, the descendents of the clans that had made it to the shores of the new world treated the Hanish as both legend and as cursed, as if to speak too much of them was to call down a similar disaster. Finding any gypsies that remembered the old tales was difficult enough; getting them to talk exceeded even Ezra's skill most of the time. And getting them to admit to being part of the seven clans that guarded the daevas was something of a minor miracle. 

Yet another double edged sword. Better that fewer knew the location and protections placed on the remaining daevas. Even Akmanna could get no truth from the dead. But there were possibly more answers there, or different weapons, perhaps even allies, if they could but get to them. 

The road smoothed out, Chris heading them back in toward town. By all appearances Vin still slept, his skin cool and clammy, the demon quiescent for now. 

There was little talk, each of them lost to his own thoughts: JD leaned out of the open window with his face to the wind. Given a choice, Ezra thought JD would remain changed forever despite his fascination with the technology of the new age, but there was no doubt of his commitment to the group, pulling more than his fair share of watches and flinching no more than Ezra did if Vin had to be put down quickly. There was ruthlessness in JD that had been absent in the boy they had met so long ago. The appearance of innocence lingered though, persisted, even now. During daylight, JD was Vin's preferred companion, no matter what form he took, perhaps because JD excelled at nothing so much as reminding all of them of their human origins. 

Perhaps because he understood the consequences of forgetting too well, a lesson they'd been shocked to learn, and JD near devastated when he realized the blood-line Magda's offspring had propagated in himself, Ezra, Nathan and Josiah, had been a literal change. It had never occurred to any of them that the change could be passed onto their own offspring, or that they'd even be capable of siring children at all. 

JD's youthful inexperience and a momentary indiscretion had proven yet again how little they'd known. It had taken several years of backtracking to find the girl and her child. JD's child. 

JD's wolf-child that somehow managed to change itself into a wolf but never been able to change back. A child that had sought comfort from its mother only to terrify the woman and be chased off by a load of buck-shot. 

A child that local farmers had finally hunted down and killed before JD or any of them could get to it, could explain or teach him anything. 

JD had maintained his own wolf shape for nearly a year, refusing to become human, refusing to be coaxed close enough to be caught. Buck's pleas into the night had been futile, Josiah's ever patient ability to talk and explain, to offer parables to a creature he knew was near but would not show itself, had been equally as futile. 

It had been Vin who had finally managed it with neither words nor actions as far as they knew. He'd only sat at the far end of whatever camp they'd set up, seeking what solitude was allowed him at the setting and rising of the sun. 

Nathan had seen it first, taking that last watch of morning, eye on Vin when he'd seen the black wolf creep out of the woods to sit, some distance away, joining Vin in his morning vigil, every morning for a week until one day he followed Vin back into camp. They'd left him alone, glad enough to have him close by. A month or so later as they approached Tulsa, JD had finally changed back, looking gaunt and weary and sorrowed and far, far older than he had any right to look. 

The modern age made safe sex more normal than not but even so, Ezra could count his own partners in the past three decades on the fingers of one hand. He dared believe the others were similarly celibate. 

The movement of Buck's hand along Vin's arm caught his eye and he glanced at the man. Well, most of them anyway. 

The edge of the city showed itself in gas stations and manufacturing plants and Chris was careful to not nudge the speed limit too hard. "Ezra, if you want to check out and get us better accommodations, we'll join you as soon as Vin's ready," Chris said, the 'we' implying himself and Buck, and probably Nathan as well. 

"It will be my pleasure, Mr. Larabee. Three rooms, one interior with well-stocked bars and excellent room service. Well, for some of us," he added and smiled to himself at hearing Nathan's chuckle. 

"Just make sure the whiskey's good," Chris said. 

"That goes without saying," Ezra shot back, catching Chris' quick grin in the rearview mirror. 

Rousing Vin took some effort, Buck all but carrying him up the stairs, Chris and Nathan following. Ezra didn’t tarry, only went to his own room to gather up or discard what was left in the room. He had no desire to watch Nathan pull his bullets from Vin's flesh and had little in practical skill to offer anyway. 

He shifted his things from the room and the van into the late model Honda they'd picked up at a rental agency and waited while Josiah and JD brought down their things and Nathan's, packing them with no great hurry and then waiting until Nathan emerged. They'd leave the van for the three remaining. 

Ezra took the driver's seat, JD surrendering the front to Josiah's longer legs and properly dressed for once. "Maybe I should stay," he said, glancing up at the room. 

"Leave 'em be, JD," Nathan advised. "Vin'll be mostly healed up in a couple of hours and Buck and Chris will handle it tonight. We all need some food and to grab what rest we can. Chances are we'll be moving on in a day or so." 

"I just don't like us being apart," JD said, which came out as less of a whine than it could have. 

"A few hours, Mr. Dunne. If they haven't shown up, we'll come back and check…or call." 

JD looked less than happy but he got in the car. 

Ezra glanced up as well, not surprised to see Buck waving them off. He gave him a salute and backed the car up. Heading across the main thoroughfare that separated the less desirable part of town from the better. 

His promise to JD had not been idle. Long before sunrise the seven of them would be together again. 

Ezra had no problem betting his life on it. 

* haud ignota loquor, ne cede desiderare: I say things that are known, do not give in to desire 

Buck waited until the car disappeared into traffic before returning to the room. The light was on, more for Vin than because either Chris or he needed it. 

Chris and Vin were as he'd left them: Chris sitting on the room's single bed with Vin's head in his lap, fingers stroking through the dark hair in a gesture more tender than anything he might show publicly, even among their own little band. 

The bloodied sheets had been bundled into a plastic trash bag before Nathan left, but Buck could still smell it, just as he could still smell the blood clinging to Vin's hair. He hadn't had the time or the energy to shower yet and might not for a little while. 

Vin's shirt was in the bag, along with Chris' clothes and the ones Buck had been wearing. Fresh clothes waited for Vin after his shower and a fresh shirt for Chris and Buck when they got around to it. Buck didn't climb on the bed to join them, only came around to crouch beside them, studying Vin's face, eyes tracking down to the half healed wounds in his chest and belly. They looked red and painful but the skin had sealed already. Buck reached out to touch one, seeing it through eyes attenuated to what could not be easily seen by others, or by no one other than he and Chris and Vin. Ezra's bullet, with no deliberate intention other than to put the demon in its place once more, had broken the pattern Josiah and Nathan had so carefully welded into Vin's flesh. It would have to be fixed. 

But not now and not tonight and it would be, with mixed blessing, a minor repair. Even as he touched it, the broken sigil glowed, seemed to squirm and Vin sucked in a breath, eyes fluttering open. 

Buck didn't need to look up to know Chris was glaring at him for disturbing Vin's rest, but he ignored it, instead finding a smile to greet the suddenly aware blue eyes. "Ain't no place for you to be right now. We've got hours to spare here," he said. 

"The others gone?" 

"Went to find us nicer digs," Chris said. "Feel up to eating something?" 

Vin shook his head and pushed himself upward. "Feel more like scrubbing myself with sand." 

"All we've got is soap," Buck said but rose as well. "Get your feet under you and we'll work with what we have." 

Vin gave him a half smile, rubbing at his face. 

Buck got the water started, heating it up to blood temperature. Vin's skin was still cool to the touch which was a mixed blessing in itself. It meant the demon was still quiet and Vin would have a few more hours of respite, but it also meant he'd be cold and miserable in a physical sense rather than a mental one. 

There was damned little middle ground for Vin at all. 

//And there but for the grace of God, Wilmington// he thought to himself, laying out towels and fetching the shampoo that Vin preferred, pretty as a hired valet. 

It was little enough to do because it was only by grace or circumstance or luck that it was Vin who carried the heaviest burden rather than Buck. Vin seemed to see it differently, but Buck never had nor ever could. He'd protect Vin to his last undying breath for that alone, even with full understanding of his own circumstances. Not that being a vampire had ever been among the dreams Margaret Wilmington had ever held for her only son, but given the choice between two bad choices, Buck couldn't deny his own gratefulness at being what he was rather than what Vin had become. 

He couldn't help feel a pang of guilt at the thought either. Couldn't help but be aware that he had choices that Vin did not. 

How difficult would it be to find someone who would drive him out into the desert just before dawn and leave him there? Too far to find shelter maybe, no escape from a sun that could be fatal and cruel to either he or Chris. Unlikely, but not impossible. 

Chris would never forgive him, but the thought had crossed his mind periodically over the years, when one too many failures dogged even Buck's generally optimistic outlook. 

It didn't take much to bring him out of it. It took no effort at all to summon up the memory of Vin's possession, and even after more than a century, Buck couldn't shake the horror of it. 

By all rights he should have died that day. The demon that now had control of Vin had done its best to make that a reality and Buck could vividly remember feeling his blood seeping into the dead and dying grasses of a New Mexico plain. He'd held on long enough to be able to tell the others what he'd seen, then everything vanished until he'd found himself opening his eyes to the last night of a full moon, the taste of blood on his tongue and an old Gypsy woman trying to explain the impossible in broken English and in as few words as possible. 

That had been the beginning of the nightmare they now all called their lives, and Buck still missed the daylight like he missed the beating of his own heart. 

But he hadn't been cast into his own version of hell alone, as Vin had been. Chris had a more practical approach to their lives as blood suckers, fueled by rage and anger, even after all this time, but there were glimpses of the man still, more often in private, occasionally with the others who must still recognize that part of Chris Larabee or they'd have stopped listening to him -- following him -- decades ago. 

He was and always had been a reluctant leader, even long before any of this. Back when Buck had first met him, Chris had been someone other men listened to for whatever reason. It had never seemed to matter to Chris if anyone did follow, but they damn sure better get the hell out of his way if they didn't. 

It could have turned out badly if the others had not found some quality in Chris to follow, some value in Vin to be willing to risk so much for so long. They all resisted from time to time, Ezra more than most, but Buck was of the opinion that the way Ezra tugged and twisted the invisible leashes they all wore was good for Chris. The man could be stupidly stubborn sometimes. 

He could be stubborn enough for all of them when it came to it or one of them would have long since given in and released Vin from the torment he carried as visibly as he now wore the silver-branded tattoos on his skin. 

They needed Vin and none knew it more than Chris did, or even Buck. They needed the others too because for all that he and Chris offered to the group or to their spoken goal, in practical terms they could only offer their gifts in the darkness. Short of binding Vin up in silver and tossing him into a box during the day, they'd have been unlikely to keep him close without the others to guard him in the daylight hours. Maybe they'd have found a way, but it made it easier not to have to bear that burden alone. 

The bathroom was steamy and Buck left it to find Chris walking a stripped naked Vin to the shower. Vin had all the strength of a new born kitten at the moment; blood loss and his near-constant fight with the daevas tended to wear him out. He seemed to be little threat, but that could change so suddenly it did none of them -- Vin least of all -- any favors to let their guard down. 

"You manage on your own?" Buck asked, a glance from Chris telling him it was unlikely. Vin would claim yes and they'd find him face down in the shower. 

It wasn't big enough for the three of them although chances were Ezra might solve that problem without any hints at all. 

They didn't even discuss it; Buck merely shucked his jeans and stepped into the water, making room for Vin and bracing his body as he let the water slice over them both. 

Buck was aiming more for efficiency than anything, the intimacy not going unnoticed but ignored for the most part in the simple need to get Vin clean and wash the scent of death and decay from his skin and hair. The water flowed near black from the gore still clinging to him, like soot and bile, and it smelled no better, but it did wash out and by the time Buck had finished, Vin was holding himself up, merely savoring the warmth of the water while Buck bathed quickly. 

He left the water running for Chris, and Chris was there with towels, taking charge of Vin for the time it took for Buck to dry off and put his jeans back on. "I ordered food. Should be here shortly," Chris told him before stepping into the shower himself. 

"Not hungry," Vin mumbled, half sleep or just exhausted. 

"You will be," Buck promised, but truth was hunger for food was rarely the top of Vin's list of priorities. 

Starving himself might be though, mixed in and among the various others ways, both passive and active, that Vin had tried to end his life. Josiah thought it was penance and that was certainly part of it, but Buck thought there was a far simpler explanation. 

Vin was tired, pure and simple. Unlike the rest of them, there was no real escape from the ills that plagued him. There was no convenient drop into dreamless sleep at the sunrise. Few chances that he could feel normal amid the rest of mankind as the others could for a time. Buck could see it in his face, feel it in his body, taste it in his blood. 

There was little any of them could do for him except every now and then make him forget for a little while, or in more desperate times, give him the death he craved with the full knowledge that in a few hours or a day, he'd rise to face it again. 

How much did he envy the girl tonight? Vin had stopped asking mostly. Stopped trying to get any of them to fight him in the off chance that somebody might actually succeed in killing him. 

Stopped challenging Chris' near unspoken belief that there had to be another answer to all of this. 

Buck wanted to believe it as well, but Chris held onto that possibility with the same stubbornness that had kept them all together for so long. Every bit of revealed information told him there were answers they didn't have yet. 

A gypsy curse had ensured that if they were careful, they'd have the time to find it eventually. 

Buck just couldn't tell exactly if Vin had also finally found away to hold onto that hope or if he just got tired of fighting about it. 

Maybe a bit of both. 

Either way, Buck was willing to see how this played out and he didn't believe in borrowing trouble from a future that was no more clear than the dirty windows of this motel. 

Chris was fast, out before the food arrived and pouring out three shots of whisky. Vin was on the bed, too tired to dress and Buck had pulled the blankets up and taken Chris' place, letting Vin rest against him and rubbing his back. 

Rare contact, because the others were vulnerable to Vin and his charms as Chris and Buck were not. It was unlikely but not impossible that Vin could kill one of the others in their wolf forms, but they were more vulnerable as humans, and that made even well intentioned compassion a risk. 

Akamanna was a seducer in his most base incarnation, and Vin could tap that talent even in a weakened state. He could beguile and convince, coax and influence and not one of the others hadn't succumbed at one time or another. It had made for a few tense and ugly moments along the way, because no matter how hard they tried, it was difficult to separate the Vin they knew from the creature with Vin's face and body that he could become. Even Vin couldn't separate them, it flowed back and forth so easily it was hard to tell. 

Less difficult with the tracery of symbols under his skin, but still possible. 

But neither Akmanna nor his servants could truly influence the dead which made Buck and Chris immune to the demon's manipulations. 

They were not, however, immune to Vin himself. 

It had been no surprise to Buck even without the influence of blood and lust that rose up when they bled Vin. That feeding and arousal were inextricably intertwined had been a little more surprising, but obvious from the beginning, from the very first time that Chris and Buck had been forced to hunt for human blood to feed their immortal hunger. Magda had warned them that feeding could become addictive and it had only taken once for Buck to understand what she meant. 

Human blood, without the taint of the demon, flowed sweeter than honey; warm human flesh was more beguiling than Vin at his most potent. It hadn't mattered that the humans they had chosen to feed from had probably been worthy of death ten times over. Chris had been more rattled than Buck at his sudden desire not just for the blood of the man he'd fed from but for his body as well. He'd thought that rush of feeling and desire had been limited to Vin *because* he was part demon. 

They might have lost Chris then. He'd been ready to feed and kill again, been halfway to taking a whore to his bed and killing her as well after rutting like a cow hand too long on the trail. 

Buck had stopped him -- had been the only one who could have. 

It had been a hard lesson to learn, but proof positive that while what they were had changed, who they were really had not on the most fundamental level. Buck would still allow no harm to come to a woman if he could stop it. 

He hadn't stopped Chris soon enough, though. 

The harm had come anyway, and nothing Nathan could do had been able to stop the girl from wasting away. Her illness came not from Chris' aborted attempt at feeding from her, but from the fact that not only their blood was tainted by whatever made them vampires, but their seed as well. Like a poison, it left traces of itself in their victims. Nathan thought now, that there were probably wide spectrum antibiotics that could keep an otherwise healthy human from succumbing, if caught at the right time. But at the end of the 20th century, no such cure had been available. 

She'd died a few weeks later, and the rumors of plague haunted the little border town of Purgatorio for months afterward, all but emptying it out. 

That death had bound Chris and Vin together as nothing else could have. 

It echoed the far more deliberate killing Vin had committed, fully under the influence of the demon. He'd been hung for it too, and while Chris had been willing to whisk Vin away from Four Corners other than killing him as Vin had begged him too, he'd been cool and distant, blaming much of their curse on Vin and unwilling to forgive him for the murder of a local prostitute entirely. 

Until *Chris* had killed unwillingly and unknowingly. Maybe even worse because Vin had at least killed Mary Catherine Coulter quickly and the girl had felt neither fear nor pain. The whore Chris had killed had lingered and suffered for weeks, body dying slowly as her mind struggled to cling to life. 

Chris might well have been willing to take a long walk into the desert at night and wait for the sun, but that stubbornness had clung to him, forced him to face up to his own lack of control and ignorance. 

Hard to blame Vin any longer when Chris was guilty of the same crime, and with far more control than Vin had possessed. 

And still it had taken nearly a year for Chris and Buck to realize that they could find relief with each other, that the affection and friendship already between them would forgive or even encourage more than simple companionship. 

Longer still and maybe even more unforgivable to realize that their realization left Vin even more isolated. That in their discoveries about themselves, amid the six of them, there was not one of them that had any idea how to remind or even encourage Vin to hold onto what humanity he had left. 

Vin's blood was even more tainted than theirs. Even the shape-shifters among them, who could survive any regular bullet in wolf-form, could heal up with a speed just short of miraculous, had been susceptible to the bite and clawing that Vin could inflict when he was out of his head and fully controlled by the demon that possessed him. He was death walking, fighting or fucking, and the lack of anything but the most cursory of physical contact had all but driven him insane without even the need of the demon to bestir itself one iota. He shied from them like a wild thing, refused to enter towns or villages. 

And nearly the only thing that had kept any vestige of him with them at all, had been JD's unending loyalty to the man Vin had been, and Chris' stubborn refusal to let Vin give up one second before every avenue of escape had been explored. 

Still, JD had shamed the older of them when they'd realized there was more going on than Vin's possession. Shamed Chris most of all though he'd never said. He and Buck had gotten far too good at denying the lust and desire that accompanied the need to bleed Vin out to keep him weak, never once thinking that it might not be entirely one-sided, or entirely a manifestation of the demon's power of seduction. 

That Vin came to them every night to be blooded might have given them a clue had they noticed it. They thought it weakness that kept him close when they were done. 

It had taken a man they all thought still a boy in some ways to let them know Vin was, on top of all the rest, lonely. 

Buck's hands filtered through Vin's hair, pulling gently at the tangles. His physical heart might be more memory than necessity, but the other heart, the one that held all Buck could or did feel, could still be broken or ache to the point of real pain. 

And Chris was no different, he just hid it better. It had become yet another example that Chris Larabee cared very little for what most other people thought -- but deeply about what people close to him thought, even if he'd never say it aloud. 

Ezra and Josiah both had protested, albeit discreetly; fearing that Chris was taking advantage of Vin in ways no man should take advantage of another man. Trusting Vin's opinions on the matter had been equally as difficult because knowing what was Vin's own desire and what was yet another manipulation of the demon inside him had been, then and still was, problematical. 

Chris had maintained he could tell the difference. And maybe he could. He had seemed certain enough for Buck to follow his lead. 

And now, Buck wondered if any of them would be here at all had they not trusted Chris on that one thing. It had nearly broken them apart. Had driven Ezra away for a time, or at least partly so. And maybe it had been the birth of Chris' carefully hoarded hope that they'd find a way to rid Vin of the demon at some point, without leaving his soul forever in limbo. 

It was an odd thing for Chris to worry about: he'd lost his faith in heaven and his trust in God at the death of his wife and son, but he'd never lost his belief in hell. It walked with him every day. 

Walked with him to this day; walked with all of them somewhat. 

But for a few hours here and there, even hell could be at peace. 

This was such a time. Vin was weak enough for Chris and Buck to be reasonably sure he wouldn't turn on them. The night had only barely begun. The others were taking their own version of R&R and Chris was in full care-taking mode. 

Buck grinned at that. He knew that trait had always existed. Seen it with Chris and his son, with Chris and his wife. That sappy, tender side of Chris was a well-kept secret, but it had always been there and it followed him into death. 

A knock at the door and Chris answered it, paying out the cash and drawing the food back in before securing the door. Vin actually lifted his head at the aroma. Buck found it a little overwhelming, but it was easily dismissed and there was a certain pleasure in watching Vin actually reach for food despite his claim of no appetite. 

Chris settled into the room's single chair with his whiskey and another little cigar, feet on the bed, a half smile playing on his lips as Vin quite deliberately and carefully finished off spicy fajita and a side order of rice and beans. 

"Think Ezra will break the bank on the rooms?" Chris asked idly. 

"He'd hafta' go further than the Hilton," Vin observed, licking at his finger for a bit of sour cream and salsa. "Good thing he and JD are as good at making money as they are at spending it." 

"Aw, now, JD don't spend much. Those graphic novels he likes so much," Buck said, leaning back and offering Vin a napkin. "New flea collar now and then…" 

That got a chuckle out of Vin and it was a rare enough sound. He was still smiling as he closed up the containers and set them aside, rubbing at his chest distractedly. 

"Better?" Chris asked him, leaning forward to offer Vin a glass of whiskey and refill Buck's glass. 

"Some. Burns and itches. Always does," Vin said but left off rubbing at the fading wounds, stretching out on the bed on his belly, to hold the glass in both hands. "Wish I knew what that old devil was up to. That girl was…too easy." 

"You weren't in the alley," Chris said and Buck stretched out beside Vin, while Chris leaned forward. 

It would be nice, Buck thought, if nearly every conversation after a hunt didn't swing back around to it, but it was as inevitable as the dawn. 

"Maybe not, but we're a week past when he'd have taken her and the papers said there'd been what? Three murders?" Vin asked taking a sip. 

"Three bodies they've found," Buck murmured. "Could be more." 

"Could be…but she's been playing the clubs. She could have had half this city eating out of her hand." 

"Maybe she wasn't too bright to begin with," Chris said in all seriousness. "But you're right. No interference from that group hanging on her. She fought like a wounded cougar, but she didn't hardly seem to think we were anything but muggers. Like she was…" 

"Weak…" Vin said, pondering it, brow furrowed. Then he looked up eyes half closed and Buck rested a hand on his mid back. 

He knew the look, the almost vacant gaze while Vin traveled paths that defied sense or reason. The tattoos shimmered but didn't burn. 

"Still west again…maybe bit north, but not too far. We can't be more than a week or two behind him," Vin said and opened his eyes again, but where there had been fatigue was now resolve and Buck reached over to pull a bit of hair from Vin's face so he could see it better, rolling to his side. 

"Got a couple of weeks before he can try again. We can get there," he half promised. They'd been moving nearly constantly over the last few months, tracking down each of Akmanna's servants as quickly as he made them. Other years it hadn't been so easy, travel iffy and even more so when Akmanna -- or McAllister -- traveled overseas. But he kept returning to the states and Buck didn't flatter himself to think that their constant hounding had much to do with it 

And unlike his servants, Akmanna wasn't always as easy for Vin to pinpoint unless he was closer -- vague impressions, only. 

Or a summons so strong it took all of them to keep Vin from answering it. 

Chris leaned forward to let his thumb rove over the broken skin. "Need to get Josiah to fix that...let it heal again," he said and Vin's head dropped to follow the path of Chris finger, before grimacing and nodding. 

"Start wearing targets on my shirts so you boys will know where to aim." 

"Need to get Josiah to hunt for other ways," Chris said gruffly, his frustration emerging a little. 

"Done more than we ever thought could be done," Vin said and finished his drink before sitting up and reaching for the clean clothes Buck had set out for him. "We should go meet up with the others." 

Buck gripped the clothing and set it aside while Chris moved onto the bed, behind Vin, one arm sliding around his waist. "We told them a couple of hours…unless you're in a hurry, or…something up?" 

The hesitation was minimal, but then Vin leaned back letting Chris support his weight and Buck grinned at the smile that twitched at the corner of Vin's lip. "Nothin' up…yet," he said and that made Buck laugh out loud. 

Yup, there was peace in hell at the moment, and maybe a little sliver of heaven, as he moved in, feeling Vin's hand lift up, curve along his neck and jaw as their mouths met. 

He did miss this, after all this time. The rush of feeding when it hit him was a pretty damn overwhelming, as good as sex if not better. Addictive and enthralling -- and dangerous for all that. Buck had no better luck at hanging on to the shred of his reasoning than Chris did; a loss of control that precipitated them rarely hunting alone because for those few minutes, those nights when the need to feed became the most important thing in their lives, they were hardly more capable of control than Vin was when the daevas controlled him fully. 

Easier if they could feed on Vin alone, or the rest of their pack, but Vin's blood, while allowing some relief, was tainted and impure, the nourishment offered a fleeting thing. And the amount of blood needed was dangerous enough to make taking it from the others an option of last resort. 

But this was about neither hunger or need -- or perhaps both only of something far less dire or overladen with obligation or regret. The affection Buck felt -- or even the love he felt, dare he say that aloud to either of them -- was as real as anything else in their lives. Love for Chris had never been that far out of his reach either as a friend or a brother, and shifting times and morals as much as Buck's own nature, had made the leap from friend to lover with very little effort. 

Vin had been more difficult -- not from lack of caring but perhaps too much, the twisted nature of the daevas quite capable of encouraging such a thing to its benefit, only to have the reality of more than one encounter to turn out to be more rape than seduction. That alone had nearly killed Chris and driven Vin so far into his own shame and helplessness that this all could have ended a hundred years ago. 

They were all made of stronger stuff than that, maybe Vin particularly, who wouldn't lay blame or guilt where no real offense had been intended, and they were past the point of seeking recrimination for what none of them could control. 

Right now, right here, though, this was all Vin. Healing still but growing stronger and as much in his right mind as he ever could be, seeking his own reassurances that there was more to any of this than obligation or duty or opportunity. 

And the desire was mutual. Maybe they could have sought other partners, he and Chris perhaps, if there could be some protection, but the risk was high and the true need for it could be met other ways that threatened no one and comforted someone both he and Chris held as dear as their own souls and hearts. 

Maybe Akmanna's influence had brought out a sensual side in Vin that had been carefully hidden in his mortal life, but there was nothing and no one to hide from here and Vin didn't try. He didn't probe too hard into the other's feelings either for him or for each other. It was enough, sometimes, just to be both welcome and wanted. 

Buck made short work of his own clothing, stripping it off and dropping his jeans on the floor again, Vin's hand reaching for him before he was even halfway back on the bed. And there was Chris looking hazy-eyed and content, pressing cool lips to Vin's shoulder and eyeing Buck's naked body with a lazily hungry gaze. 

Vin's hand was warm on Buck's cock, stroking and rubbing, knowing that length of flesh as well as he knew his own, but it was all feeling and not much reaction until Vin offered his wrist to Buck's lips. Vin was far closer to being aroused; Chris seeing to it, fondling and kissing as Vin had with Buck. 

Just another little adjustment that had almost slipped past regret, as Buck took the proffered wrist and bit as gently as he possibly could, sucking just as carefully. This wasn’t about bleeding Vin, it was about rousing the blood in his body and in Chris' long enough to both give and receive pleasure without sending either of them into a frenzy. 

Vin exhaled a sound that was both hiss and moan as Chris' fangs sank into his shoulder, also seeking blood and warmth, but not the full flow of his jugular. They wanted Vin with them, not just a convenient body for lust and Vin knew it, trusted them with a faith that Buck sometimes found difficult to bear up under. 

Vin's blood alone was damn near enough to make Buck come. Like a drug, it heightened his senses, flooded him with warmth, but nourished nothing else. He was suddenly all aware of the rapid beating of Vin's heart, of the little twitches and flexes of muscle, of the too shallow breathing as the echoing resonant feeling of lust and desire flowed back into Vin from the two men feeding upon him. 

Vin pushed at Buck's shoulder with his free hand, not moving so quickly as to dislodge Chris. Buck stretched out and Vin straddled him, leaning forward to seek another kiss, tasting his own blood when Buck pulled his mouth from Vin's wrist to tangle their tongues and then pull Vin closer so that Buck's now flushed and hardened dick rubbed against Vin's. 

Vin had to shift and Buck found Chris stretching out beside him, turning his head to capture his own kiss from Buck then laying back to watch Vin settle before pulling himself up to half curl across Buck's belly, wrapping his tongue and lips around Vin's cock as Vin let Buck settle deep inside him. 

Decadent as a Parisian whorehouse, Buck thought, fitting tightly inside Vin, enough to make skin catch and Vin grunt as he settled and rose, fingers reaching out to tangle in Chris' hair where he suckled and licked. 

Buck caught his wrist again, sucking even as he thrust, knowing almost to the second when Chris once more bit as well, this time far more intimately. 

Vin shuddered all over, head dropping back as he was both pierced and penetrated, nothing but blind pleasure on his face. Buck wormed his hand over Chris' hip to catch him, stroke him, all of them moving together in time to Vin's heart, as if he alone could keep the rhythm going. 

And Vin was purely beautiful to look at like this, with none of the fear or frustration or sorrow haunting his face or his eyes. Chris could look the same and Buck was fairly certain rapture struck his own face no matter who was doing what to who. 

Buck wondered now if sex, or even lovemaking, had ever felt so intense when his body was warm and his nerves more used to sensation. He remembered women and a few men, from long before, all warm and willing, in it for a bit of fun and comfort as Buck had been. He'd learned young to give pleasure as well as get it, his mother's profession and her own nature teaching him to never take another person for granted, or to be selfish about what he could bring to a friendship or to a bed. 

But between the sheer physical sensation and the heightened awareness sand sense that came from taking Vin's blood into himself, he didn't remember ever being so intimately aware of how it felt to do those things, to give and receive and feel them both. 

Vin's ass was tight and far warmer than Buck's skin, slick and moist, his skin softer than any woman Buck could remember even with the older calluses and scars. He moved like he could feel Buck in every part of him, every thrust sending his head back like it rode up his spine, mouth open and gasping as if Buck's dick were lodged in his throat as well as his ass. 

Buck could feel Chris as if his oldest friend were sucking and nipping on Buck's dick instead of Vin's. Could feel the ride of a hard cock in his own ass, and Chris moved as if he could feel the same thing, rocking forward when Buck's hand slid from his crotch to finger at his hole. 

Vin was moaning low and soft, riding the thrust of Buck's hips, those patterns under his skin glowing dully to Buck's eyes as he got closer and closer to the release being offered. They danced under his skin, encircled his arms, wove patters across his chest and belly and down his thighs. Even knowing why they were there, what their purpose was, Buck couldn't help but admire them. 

Chris lifted his head, to kiss Buck again, the bitter taste of Vin's blood and semen on his tongue, lingering on his lips before he moved again to come up behind Vin, both of them straddling Buck now and Chris catching Vin's hands to push them down, that doubled clasp riding over Vin's cock and milking it until Vin went rigid for a moment and Buck pushed up and in hard, gripping Vin's thighs as Chris bit into Vin's throat again. 

Ecstasy and rapture showed on both their faces as orgasm took over everything Vin was for a moment, and Buck thrust again, then pushed up, sending Vin back into Chris' arms as Buck's mouth closed over one tattooed nipple and he bit gently. 

It wasn't Vin's cry that filled the room, but Buck's, all of that feeling rushing out of him and into Vin, in some ways returning to its source. He felt Vin's hand curl around his head, filter through his hair as he sucked and humped, sending after shocks and a frisson of pleasure into Vin again and again, all of it fed back to him in the heady taste of blood and sweat. 

He could keep at this, hold onto this feeling for as long as Vin had blood flowing through his veins. They'd done that a time or two as well, mostly by accident and never without some feeling of shame or discontent and Buck was more careful now, Chris more attentive when Vin sighed and whimpered, near overwhelmed and going boneless as he was weakened. 

Buck licked at the small wound on Vin's chest, watching it close slowly, the four small puncture shrinking to pinpoints. Chris was pulling Vin back, with little help from Vin and Buck lifted him as well, both of them laying Vin down on the bed in a boneless sprawl, only the rapid rise and fall of Vin's chest indicating he lived at all. 

But his face was at peace, the shimmering sigils fading. And Buck moved to get a cloth to wipe the dark traces of Vin's come from his belly and from Vin's skin. 

They couldn't warm him with their bodies much. Already the warmth Vin's blood had offered was fading. It never lasted long. Chris covered him with a blanket and lay down beside him, Buck guarding them both from the other side, only leaning over once to share the last taste of Vin's blood with Chris. 

They'd let him rest, sleep if that's what it was, knowing he might wake changed, or not. They'd see him settled, spend some time with the others resting or planning. Take care of repairing the spells etched in Vin's flesh and then they might move on, following that invisible trail that only Vin could see. 

Buck tenderly pushed a damp curl from Vin's forehead, eyes meeting Chris' for a moment. If they found Akmanna, managed to trap him, this might all be over with. Or it might not. Buck didn't know. Wasn't sure he wanted to actually look too hard at the end of the road they traveled. 

So instead he lay down, pressed his head to Vin's chest and let the steady faint beat lull him into a sense that holding onto heaven for even a few minutes more, was worth the admission price to hell. 

~~end~~


End file.
